


Last Calling

by Spotlessharry



Category: Tru Calling
Genre: Happy Ending, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:17:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2439833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spotlessharry/pseuds/Spotlessharry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So sad we never got to see the second series of Tru Calling (especially when you read on Wikipedia what they had planned). So here's how it ended all up</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Calling

Disclaimer: I do not own the television series that this fanfiction is  
written for, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from  
the writing of this story.

Summary: just bought and watched the entire first and second seasons of Tru  
Calling. That's it? Nnnnnnhhhhhhhh! They can't end it there. Christ, if I  
like a TV series it inevitably seems to get cancelled, Dark Skies, Space;  
Above and Beyond, Angel (ok, 5 seasons is a good run but I'd say it was good  
for another year at least). Anyway, barring them giving a TV movie to wind  
things up (why don't they do that? They make movies of the week, why don't  
they link it to series with a guaranteed audience? And we'd all buy the DVD)  
here's how I think it all works out. The pressure of her �Gift' drives Tru  
to drugs, prostitution and suicide. (Don't worry, you know me, happy ending  
as ever).

Disclaimer: all belongs to Fox and naught to I, purely a free story for  
Internet distribution.

 

Last Calling 

"Plesubis Hominai."

She had worked here a week before noticing it, written above the door of  
every room. She'd never taken Latin and she hadn't had the nerve to ask so  
she'd looked it up in the college library.

"To please men."

Just in case any of them forgot why they were here.

"And what about our pleasure?" she'd once asked Madame V.

"For that we have each other" she'd replied kindly without missing a beat.  
Tru had to admit, it was a hell of a good comeback.

She stepped out of the shower and into the changing room, drying herself  
with a scarlet coloured towel. A scarlet woman indeed. It didn't occur to  
her to even attempt to cover her naked body. She had no secrets from the  
other girls, they'd shared more than she could ever have imagined together.  
She sometimes smiled when she thought of how shy she'd been in the school  
showers.

She finished drying herself and sat down at the dressing table. God, she  
looked terrible, tired and wan, eyes bloodshot, her beauty gradually being  
eroded by her constant burning the candle at both ends. The pressure of her  
work at the morgue, medical school and rewind days inevitably wearing her  
down. She'd go on the sunbed tomorrow, take a sick day from the morgue and  
just sleep, sleep long and hard.

For tonight she needed to stay awake. But she had an answer for that too.

"See you later Tru" one of the twins said, stroking Tru's damp chestnut hair  
as they walked past.

"See you" Tru responded, happy at this casual display of affection but glad  
to be left alone. She watched them go, one dressed in a skimpy white teddy  
with matching stockings and suspenders, the other dressed in a mirror image  
black lace lingerie outfit. She gave up, admitting she couldn't tell them  
apart with their clothes on. Naked, she knew that Terri had a certain beauty  
mark Sherri lacked. And she knew how she liked to be kissed on it.

The sisters walked hand in hand as always, unconsciously intimate. No wonder  
all the guys freaked for them. She�d heard a rumour that they'd been spotted  
on a TV show by an Arab Sheikh who'd had Madame V approach them on his  
behalf. They'd kept saying no and she'd kept on offering more money until  
they'd said yes. They were truly gorgeous, fairytale blondes and Tru knew  
from personal experience that they were utterly sensational together, in  
complete sync with one another.

But watching them all Tru could think of was how much she missed Meredith.

How long since she'd spoken to her sister? Or Harrison? Dad kept him so  
busy nowadays. She'd long since lost touch with Lindsay. Her study group at  
medical school didn't even bother to ask her to spend time with them any  
more, they'd know she'd always turn them down. She and Davies barely spoke  
to one another outside work now. He had a new assistant now, grooming her to  
be a new Tru?

Thank god for the twins, for all the girls here. She was always welcome in  
their arms.

She put the towel on the rack, it's deep crimson matching the elegant  
surroundings. No filthy back street hovel, this place would put the Ritz to  
shame, all top class.

Top class whore.

Because that's what she was. A whore, a prostitute. She sold her body for  
money, had sex with strangers for cash. No different to the disease riddled  
wretch selling oral sex for $20 a shot in some filthy back alley to pay for  
her crack. Or the high-class courtesan in her penthouse apartment bedecked  
with jewels and furs. A whore was a whore.

She smiled slightly when she remembered watching Gigi with her mother and  
asking her embarrassed parents what a courtesan was. Crack whore was  
something girls said to each other at high school as an insult, it took a  
long time for her to learn what it was but she pretty much knew it was an  
insult from the way they said it.

She whistled a few bars from 'Thank heaven for little girls'. Huh, write that  
song nowadays and they'd lock you up.

She began putting on her makeup in huge quantities to try and hide the  
stress and sadness that her face spoke of. Now she understood the expression  
'painted whore'. To be fair she'd never wear this much when she used to date,  
this was for work only. She was absolutely a different person in her other  
life. She practised her work face in the mirror, a bimboish combination of  
passion, submission, devotion, lust and obedience. It was largely based on  
game show hostesses, some cheerleaders she'd met at college and some of  
Harrison's less cerebral girlfriends. She called it her 'contented milkmaid'  
look. In reality she knew this was the oxytocin stare, the look a mother gave  
her newborn baby when she held her child in her arms.

She was looking old. She knew she was always her worst critic, most women  
were, but she could see the ravages of her lifestyle beginning to bite. But  
she didn't see any way out. She'd never asked for this, never asked for any  
of it, it had found her. She had no choice but to go on.

How much longer would her beauty last? How much longer until she was the girl  
passed by the customers on the line up and be crestfallen that she hadn't  
been picked. How much longer could this go on?

She gave one last look around and reached for her cigarette case. She  
carefully measured out the white powder and divided it into lines on the  
mirror using the razor blade. She never snorted with a rolled up dollar,  
that was one clich� she avoided. She used a jewelled cocktail straw a  
client had given her as a present.

All top class.

She was running low. She'd have to get some more tomorrow. She knew cocaine  
was progressively addictive, that you gradually craved more and more, not  
like heroin where you could only take so much before you OD'd. She knew  
exactly what it was doing to her. But she simply couldn't get through the  
day without it.

It had just been so easy to get into. Started with stimulants to help her  
stay awake. Coke had been a natural progression.

Her nose started bleeding. She grabbed a load of tissues and stopped it by  
tipping her head back. She knew that this was the least of her problems. Take  
enough and it would burn a hole in your nose, destroy the septum leaving you  
with one big ugly nostril. It had already taken away her nose hairs making  
her susceptible to colds and flu's, she had one more or less all the time.  
Eventually it would burn out her kidneys, give her blood clots, raised blood  
pressure, chest pains. Then there were the mental effects, the paranoia, as  
if Jack wasn't enough. The constantly being on edge, the restlessness, the  
feeling of your skin crawling all the time. It was hellish. Thank god she was  
beautiful enough to pay for it this way, that she didn't yet have to steal to  
feed her addiction. But she knew that eventually that day would come.

But what alternative did she have?

"Madame V will chuck you out for that" Tara pointed out handing her some more  
tissues. Tru nodded, wiping the coagulating blood from her nose.

"I'm snorting, not injecting" she replied, embarrassed to have been caught.  
She rapidly cleared her kit away as Tara rifled through the drawers.

"What are you looking for?" she asked, glad to change the subject.

"Extra condoms" Tara responded finding a large pack.

"Sailors?" Tru asked, wondering if the fleet was in town.

"Japanese businessmen" Tara replied skipping from the room in her red  
lingerie. Tru watched her go. It was Tara who'd introduced her to this life.  
When she'd needed money for the drugs she'd gone to her old friend from the  
frat boy poisonings rewind. Tru had been surprised how much she'd enjoyed  
stripping at the club, the dancing, the attention and adoration, the  
sisterhood of the girls. And the money of course. She'd had to buy a huge  
new Prada purse just to carry all the tens and twenties she collected in her  
garter every night. But it had all taken up so much time and with rewind  
days, study and her shifts at the morgue she just couldn't keep it regular.  
The brothel was more casual, a lot of the girls from the club sidelined  
there. You turned up when you wanted to.

When you needed to.

She looked in the mirror. She was as good as she was going to get. Her body  
was still voluptuous but she was beginning to lose weight at an appalling  
rate. The coke acted as an appetite suppressant, one of the reasons so many  
models used it. She sometimes forced herself, struggled to keep the food  
down. It was like no other agony she could imagine. She pretty much lived  
on vitamins nowadays because if you didn't your gums would start bleeding  
and your teeth would fall out. She'd already noticed a few grey hairs. God,  
she was still in her twenties! It was just the most appalling spiral.

It would have been healthier for her to just hit herself over the head with  
a hammer.

Davies noticed. He always asked and she always had an excuse for him. Rewind  
days had made her an accomplished liar even before she'd become a junkie.

Because that's what she was. A junkie. A junkie whore.

It was worse than that though. The drugs blocked the endorphin receptors on  
her frontal lobes, destroyed the areas that allowed her to feel emotions.  
Destroyed her ability to love. People sometimes wondered how junkies could  
bear to steal from their family's or even hurt or kill the people they loved  
to feed their habit. But with the drugs you just didn't care anymore, didn't  
care about anything but your next fix.

How would this end?

She banished such thoughts and went through the rack, trying to decide what  
to wear tonight. Naturally there was every sort of lingerie know to man.  
White lace for the virgin/whore look, black lace for the whore/whore look,  
red silk for the insatiable/whore look. The whole place was always kept  
stiflingly warm so that the girls could parade around in two handkerchiefs  
and prayer which must have been tough on the domestic staff and Madame V.  
It didn't bother the customers though. They never kept their clothes on for  
long.

How about a costume tonight? The schoolgirl was always a favourite, Britney  
Spears had a lot to answer for. She'd pretty much perfected her dance moves  
to 'Hit me baby one more time" and they always had CD of the song to hand in  
case a customer requested it. 'Spank me baby one more time' was probably  
more appropriate. She put it on and looked at herself in the mirror before  
rejecting it. She turned around and raised the micro-skirt to reveal her  
pert ass, still red and tender from her last spanking. She prised her cheeks  
apart, her black lace thong cutting deeply between them to reveal that the  
stripes from the cane had marked her even there.

* * *

"You're a very bad girl."

Tru bowed her head, duly ashamed. "Yes headmaster."

"You know what happens to bad girls don't you?"

Without another word Tru laid herself across his lap. 

He did not disappoint her.

* * *

No, she needed time to heal, her body was weakened by the drugs and that made  
it take longer. She sat down again and unbuttoned her knotted cut-off blouse,  
working her black high heels and white knee socks off as she did so.

She'd been quite shocked when she'd learned how much she enjoyed light S&M.  
It wasn't just the physical sensations, wasn't just the intensity of it all.  
She figured at the back of her mind she was glad she was being punished, felt  
guilty about what she was doing. When she was chastised all the guilt went  
away. She liked bondage for the same reason, when she was tied up, when she  
was handcuffed she felt so helpless and vulnerable that she didn't have to  
feel bad about enjoying herself.

It made her feel alive once more. And little did nowadays.

As she stripped off her wonderbra she thought back to when her mother had  
spanked her and Meredith as children. Dad had always rapped Harrison's  
knuckles with a ruler when he'd deserved it (which seemed pretty much all  
the time, even then) but he'd always left it to mom to put the girls over  
her knee. She wondered what her mother would say if she saw her now?

But maybe she would understand. She'd had the gift too, understood how it  
affected you, the sacrifices it entailed. Sometimes she wondered if she  
hadn't in some way welcomed her murder? That finally it would all stop.

She was naked again. She looked down the rack for another outfit.

Cheerleader?

Her attitude to them had always been a mixture of despising and envying at  
the same time. But then that had pretty much been her attitude to strippers  
and whores before she'd become both. She understood exactly why guys went  
for both the cheerleader and schoolgirl, it was always the same type. Always  
the nerd who'd lusted after his high-school crush from afar but never had  
the nerve to ask in all truthfulness never had a shot anyway. Now his  
brainpower, his nerdiness had made him money and he wanted to revisit his  
lost youth, get the girl he always thought he'd deserved. To do the things  
they'd only ever written about in their internet fanfiction. Tru smiled to  
herself as she remembered her own crushes. You could never go back, not  
really, but the illusion was nice.

"So we beat on, boats against the current..."

That and the virgin/reproductive prime thing. But a virgin around here was  
rarer than a straight man at a 'Sex and the City' fan club. Men were deluded,  
they believed what they wanted to believe. Yet so did women, yearning after  
the same unobtainable mixture of Hugh Grant and Arnold Scharzeneger. Men  
trying to find a replacement for the mother figure in their lives, women for  
their fathers. But no one could ever measure up to that ideal everyone  
experienced as babies in their parents arms.

French maid? Always a classic, cleaned for you, cooked for you, had sex  
with you, didn't speak a word of english, pretty much most guys ideal woman.  
Problem was some customers actually mistook her for a real maid and asked her  
to fetch them drinks or take their coats for them.

Nurse? God, men were so cliched. But then so were women, still waiting for  
James Bond and Prince Charming to whisk them away. The outfit she had here  
was lot racier than the real nurse's uniform she'd stolen whilst trying to  
help that soldier. It was safely stashed at the back of her wardrobe along  
with her little black lacy number in case any future boyfriend was an  
especially good boy.

She paused for a second. Boyfriend? Would she ever have a boyfriend again?  
No, she had decided, she just couldn't risk another. The cold unemotional  
sex she had here would sustain her physical needs, the affection of the  
other girls her emotional side.

And there was always the coke.

She had already decided never to have children. It was a lot to give up but  
she didn't want to pass this gift on, would never wish to inflict it on  
another. She sometimes felt resentment to her mother for doing just that to  
her. She occasionally wondered why her and not Meredith? She was the first  
born after all? Maybe the corpses had spoken to Meredith? Maybe she'd just  
chosen not to hear them.

Or maybe she got the gift as she was physically closest to her mother when  
she died.

Her slightly pensive mood was lifted by the sight of her Wonder Woman  
costume. She'd loved hers as a kid so much she'd used to try and sleep in  
it (Meredith had always been The Princess, a costume they also had here.  
Harrison had been Spiderman which they lacked). Lynda Carter had obviously  
made a big impression on a lot of little boys who'd carried that over into  
adulthood. She knew if she wore that she'd be fighting the men off. Which  
they would also probably get turned on by.

No, she didn't have the energy tonight, even with the effects of the coke  
kicking in.

Stewardess? "Would you like anything with your coffee? Cream? Sugar? Me?"

Hot cop? "Hands were I can see them buddy! Let me cuff you while I do a strip  
search."

Dressing up was one of the more enjoyable aspects of the job, she understood  
now why actors loved their craft so much.

Her dominatrix outfit also appealed. She loved how powerful it made her feel,  
the tight PVC clinging to her skin (with suitable amounts of talcum powder of  
course), the towering spiked heels on her thigh boots making her feel like a  
true Amazon. If the naughty schoolgirl appealed to her masochistic side, her  
black PVC number fed her sadistic fantasies, venting her frustrations on  
others rather than herself.

She could never get over the men who loved being dominated. Politicians,  
heads of companies, senior military officers, invariably men who wielded  
great power in everyday life. But that was the whole point, you were in  
your fantasy life what you weren't in real life. If you used to be the  
school nerd, if you felt powerless, you wanted to feel powerful, to  
dominate. If you really WERE powerful you wanted to take a break from it,  
to feel helpless for a while, to be dominated rather than dominate for  
once.

* * *

"ON YOUR KNEES YOU LITTLE WORM!" Tru thundered. He fell onto all fours and  
as he had requested Tru placed her spiked heel against the small of his back.

Tru hesitated "Pineapple. Are you sure you want me to do this?"

"Pineapple. GOD YES!" he looked at her imploringly.

Tru shrugged. It was her job to give him what he wanted. She cracked the whip  
across his back.

"EYES ON THE FLOOR!" she ordered. She wondered if he could give her any stock  
tips afterwards?

* * *

A lot of the girls really hated the men and took full advantage of the S&M  
games to vent that fury. Tru didn't, she considered them to be just as  
screwed up as the women who pleasured them. She never failed to be shocked  
by the variety of customers she had. Handsome men, men who you'd never think  
of having to use prostitutes. Charming men, men who you would fall for in  
an instant if you met them outside. But outside they wouldn't be the same  
people, would live in fear of rejection and wouldn't be half so confident as  
they could be when they knew you were a sure thing.

Ugly men, deformed men, crippled by war, disease and accidents. Really Tru  
didn't care, she'd close her eyes and they'd all be the same to her in the  
darkness. Shy men who could never think themselves worthy to even speak to  
a beautiful woman in real life. Bored men. Nice men. Cruel men. Tired men  
with no more energy for the dating game. Lonely men. Obese men. Men who  
wanted a girl they considered totally out of their class. Men who wanted to  
do things they could never ask of their wives and sweethearts. Men who  
couldn't speak enough english to seduce ordinary women. Old men reliving  
their lost youth.Viagra had a lot to answer for and Tru would often find  
herself being banged for hours at a time by men old enough to be her  
grandfather.

Young men, desperately intent on losing their virginity. Tru's favourite  
client would invariably be a rich middle aged drunken businessman who was  
proud of himself if he could do it twice, even with viagra. Tru's least  
favourite was some high-school senior or college freshman who was intent  
on getting his money's worth and thought nothing of six times a night.

* * *

They stood around, unsure what to do. Tru decided to give them a lead and  
proffered them all a box of condoms.

"Do we have to...?" one of the gawky teenagers began.

"YES!" Tru declared firmly. None of the girls would ever break that rule, no  
matter how much men begged or bribed.

She decided to get things started, stripping off her cheerleader uniform.

They got the idea.

* * *

Some guys were impotent, even with the little blue pill. Some higher sex  
drives than their wives/girlfriends. Some were just plain unhappy. Tru had  
once suggested ice cream to one such man but inevitably he'd ended up licking  
it off her naked body. She'd been sticky for the next 2 days.

Gay men came here to try and prove to themselves or their buddies or their  
famillies that they were straight. One guy was bisexual and his purely gay  
male lover who would come with him to the brothel and chat to the girls  
whilst he satisfied his womanising instincts.

Then there was Sir Lancelot. Lord knows what his actual name was but Tru had  
never dreamt that a real man could be so massively endowed. She'd bedded him  
with Tara and the twins and yet still felt as though she'd been split in two  
and ached for days afterwards. Ached in a good way, her nails splintered from  
clawing his back in the fury of passion. It was weird, most men would have  
given their eye teeth to have a penis like his but just like a woman with  
truly huge breasts it was sometimes more a curse than a blessing. Sir  
Lancelot bedded whores because ordinary women were too intimidated by his  
size.

He was the extreme exception. She scarcely if ever managed to orgasm when she  
was with a client, she just wasn't into them that much. She could fake it  
with the best of them of course, she could probably give Robert De Niro  
acting lessons.

But then again that wasn't what she was here for.

'Plesubis Hominai'.

If she wanted to come she need only go to one of the girls. They knew her  
body almost better than she did.

Some men just wanted to talk. Some cried in your arms. Some wanted to call  
you mommy which freaked Tru out. Equally she was OK with mistress and master  
but refused to play the 'daddy' game.

One girl had recounted the story of going to a client's room and being  
horrified to discover her equally aghast brother. Tru wondered that it had  
never occurred to him it would always be someone's sister in that room? Men  
were such hypocrites. No, in fact, people generally were such hypocrites.

* * *

Tru sobbed into the pillow, trembling with pain and shock from the harsh  
treatment she had just recieved, the painful, brutal intercourse. Hearing her  
weeping he turned to look at her.

"Everyone thinks you're the nicest guy alive!" she spat at him.

He reached towards her. She recoiled but he actually started stroking her  
hair and back with incredible tenderness. Despite herself she began to gently  
rub her body against his caress, unable to resist the show of intimacy after  
such hurt.

"I am the nicest man alive" he told her. "But I can't be nice all the time.  
That's why I have you."

She sighed, realising he had won her over. "You know I voted for you. I liked  
your stand in the enviroment."

He nodded "It's the most important issue facing us today."

* * *

It was always men. Now and again you'd get a couple who wanted a girl for a  
threesome and Tru would be happy to oblige but you'd never get a woman here  
by herself, it just didn't happen. As she always thought of it there were  
prostitutes who were lesbians but no lesbian prostitutes. Women just lacked  
that kind of dog in heat desperation men seemed to possess. When she'd danced  
at the strip club Tru had always shared the mixed feelings of the other girls  
about lesbian night. On the one hand it was a far nicer atmosphere, she'd  
actually let the women touch her in a manner she'd never dream of letting  
male clients do. But they never made as much money, women simply weren't the  
suckers men were.

Here and at the strip club they could feel as they'd always wanted to feel,  
adored, admired, surrounded by worshipping females who they supported through  
their money, their virility. Like a caveman long ago, wanting to be the star  
of his tribe, the big hunter whom all the women swooned over and wanted to  
bear his children. Madame V had once posed a riddle for her "What two times  
in his life is a man fawned over by women and then have a pair of breasts  
shoved in his face?"

The first answer was easy, at the strip club or the brothel. The second took  
her a little longer, when he was a baby in the cot. "But girl babies have  
that happen to them too!" she'd objected.

"And when we hit 13 we get a pair of our own breasts to play with" Madame V  
had countered "And we get adoration and affection form other females all our  
lives."

She abhorred the married men. Some of them were suitably ashamed, hiding  
the tan lines of the wedding rings they'd carefully removed. Others were  
boastful, insisting on talking about their wives whom they were cheating  
on. Did they really think that she wanted to know? Did they think it  
impressed her?

It made it easier that some of the girls were the same. Bored, lonely,  
married women who craved adventure and to be adored by men in a way that  
their husbands no longer could provide. Some even had kids. One had once  
told Tru that she didn't consider it cheating because there was no emotional  
involvement. It was a lie, if Tru had ever caught her boyfriend with a  
prostitute it would have been just as bad as if it had been with a lover.

The girls here were as varied as their clients. Some were the stereotype  
that Tru expected, women who had either been abused as children or starved  
of physical affection in their youth. She'd hooked some of them up with a  
psychiatrist Davies had recommended and several had left this life never to  
return. She sometimes wondered if Madame V knew what she had done? She  
suspected she did. After all, it wasn't as though she had any shortage of  
volunteers.

Some genuinely were schoolgirls although Madame V always insisted they were  
all over 18 with documentary proof to go with it. The authorities and the  
public tolerated this place but there was a limit Madame V was quick to  
adhere to. One of those rules was no drugs. Tru wondered how much longer she  
could hide her addiction from this sharpest of women. Yet she was also one  
of the gentlest people Tru had ever known, a surrogate mother to them all.  
One of the girls had once told her that her sink had been blocked and she'd  
turned to Madame V because she could think of no one else. But Madame V had  
the scariest eyes anyone had ever seen, they looked like horror movie contact  
lenses, her pupils tiny dots against a sinister blue/grey colouring. The  
devils eyes.

You could never judge by appearance.

As far as Tru had been able to discover her real name was Megan Forrester.  
The story went that she'd come into this life when her car had broken down  
one night and she'd come to this place to use the phone. A customer had  
picked her out thinking she was a working girl and she'd been too flattered  
to refuse.

She reminded Tru a great deal of Kristine, red hair instead of brunette but  
she had the same vibe. Kristine who was on the other side of the world,  
helping the Tsunami victims rebuild their lives. How Tru ached for her  
sometimes.

Some girls were aspiring models and actresses who thought this a lot better  
than waiting tables and hoped to make contacts. Apparently it wasn't unknown,  
Demi Moore and other Hollywood stars had allegedly once worked as escorts.  
Some girls married their clients, Pretty Woman was rare but it did happen  
occasionally. Tru had had two proposals from men who could keep her in  
diamonds and caviar for the rest of her life. She'd gently turned both down.  
Because they didn't really love her, they loved the image she portrayed, the  
perfect women to them. They didn't love the real Tru.

A lot of the girls were just greedy. This was some of the easiest money you  
could ever earn. The younger ones would come in dripping of Gucci clothes,  
Tiffany jewellery and strutting around in the their Jimmy Choos. Many were  
students like Tara, paying off their loans. One had told Tru she was saving  
up to travel across Europe. Another used the money in order to keep her pony.  
Others used the money to support their families, to put children and siblings  
through schools and college.

Lots were bored or just experimenting. Sowing their wild oats. Tru didn't  
think that was wrong, no one would think it wrong for men to be promiscuous,  
why was it any different for women?

Secretaries, nurses, airline stewardesses. Even a cop. You could always tell  
what people did for a living because they never wanted to play that character  
when it came to role-playing.

Because here you were the person you weren't in real life.

Tru Davies would never work in a place like this. She was a good girl who  
would never have anything to do with this sort of thing. She would never  
dress up and act a role to please a man's fantasies, would never enjoy anal  
or fisting or group sex with beautiful female twins. Would never gain  
pleasure from being bound or spanked or humiliated. Never would Tru Davies  
willingly submit to being gang-banged by six guys at once, hard thrusting  
cocks in each hand and every fuckhole.

But Butterfly would.

Here you could be as feminine as you liked, here it was accepted, it was  
nothing to be ashamed of. Here Tru Davies modern independent woman didn't  
exist but Butterfly did.

She turned to the mirror and inspected her tattoo on her thigh, a little blue  
butterfly. In some ways she thought it tacky, as if she was a branded horse  
or something. In other ways she thought it cute, a sign she had been accepted  
into the sisterhood here. It was a sign that not only did she belong to  
someone but that she simply belonged.

All the girls had them. The twins had the star-sign Gemini. Tara a crystal  
of Turquoise, her stage name. Robin had a little Robin. Others ranged from a  
sailing ship to a little kitten. Madame V's was just a plain V.

Why had she chosen the butterfly? Because it signified femininity? Maybe  
because it was ephemeral and didn't stay long? Maybe she just wanted to fly  
away?

Here, in this place she wasn't Tru Davies, didn't all the responsibilities  
of the rewind days. Here she could just let herself go, detach herself from  
reality. It was like having a split personality, one face she showed the  
world, one face she kept to herself here. If those two sides were ever to  
meet she felt she would simply meltdown. She needed this all more than the  
drugs.

She finally selected her outfit, a crimson, vampy, slinky evening dress she  
often wore that reminded her of the one she'd worn at Lindsey's beauty  
pageant. God, it seemed so long ago. Of course with that dress she'd actually  
worn some underwear.

The sound of the gunshot tore through her reverie.

* * *

She didn't run. What was the point?

In any other circumstance it would almost have been funny. The cop was  
weeping in Madam V's arms. The nurse was staring on in horror, looking as  
though she was about to faint. Leaving it to the French Maid and the  
Cheerleader to perform CPR.

But then the French maid was actually a nurse and the cheerleader was really  
a cop.

"Tru help me stop the bleeding!" Robin instructed, trying to plug the gaping  
whole in the businessman's chest with one of her pom-poms.

No, it was too late. She'd seen so much death she knew when someone would  
make it and when they wouldn't. She took careful note of the scene, taking  
especial care to remember the bullet whole in the window and the broken  
glass scattered across the carpet signifying he'd been shot from outside.

"He's dead" the French Maid announced, giving up on compressions. Tru bent  
down and took his hand. She waited for the inevitable.

His eyes spring to life again.

"Help me..."

"Here we go again" she thought resignedly as the day reset itself.

* * *

"Tru did you hear what I said?" Davies thundered down the phone.

"Yeah, yeah I heard" all she could think about was getting another fix. Of  
all the days for the cops to bust her dealer this was the worst. It felt like  
a corkscrew grinding away at her insides. The agony of withdrawal was almost  
more than she could stand. She had to find another source but where?

"Tru it was his business partner, he killed him because he'd discovered he  
was embezzling. He shot him at the brothel because he figured they'd try to  
cover it up..."

"I've got to go" she snapped back, turning off her cellphone.

"TRU!" Davies roared.

* * *

He was dead.

She'd failed. Not because of Jack. Not because of circumstance or anything  
else. She'd failed because of her own failings. She'd failed and a man was  
dead. Dead because she'd been out looking frantically for a fix when she  
should have been saving him. Her drugs had become more important to her than  
saving people's lives.

What had she become?

Well it was time for a change.

She walked out on to the balcony of her apartment.

* * *

She walked into the morgue checking her cheeks for the last traces of  
lipstick. Problem with resigning from a whorehouse was everyone wanted to  
kiss you goodbye, from Madame V right down to the cook. And whores tended  
to wear a LOT of makeup. It had taken her about five minutes to scrub it  
all off.

Her coke had gone down the toilet. She didn't need it any more. Meredith was  
flying in tonight and she'd agreed to sponsor her to her first few Narcotics  
Anonymous meetings. Cold Turkey had been hell but now she and her sister  
would go through it together. She felt it would bond them closer than ever.  
And she hadn't had a nosebleed all day.

She was on time. Hell for once she was actually early. Tonight she would meet  
her study group and they'd finish their report together. And then they'd all  
go to dinner, her friends from college, Meredith, Harrision, Davies,  
everyone. Her appetite was returning, she would eat, eat real food again. So  
what if she put on a few pounds? She could always start running again. And  
tomorrow she would phone Lindsey and see how married life was treating her.  
Then she would sit down and write a long letter to Kristine asking if she  
could come and visit her in the college holidays.

She opened the door. Davies was sitting there on his stool as always. She  
opened her mouth, wanting to apologise to him as to how she'd been behaving.

He beat her to it. "You're fired" were his first words to her.

* * *

"No, not like that" Davies rolled his eyes. Amanda quailed. "It's ok" Davies  
reassured her "Everyone screws up on their first day" He wasn't mad at her,  
not really. He was mad at Tru whatever the hell had happened to her. He felt  
like he didn't know her at all nowadays.

A fresh body was brought in. Well, there was no teacher like experience.

"Ok, now watch me, body appears to be that of a twenty year old white female  
who has suffered some form of blunt force trauma to her head, possibly from a  
fall. First of all we take her personal belongings...."

Amanda cowered in the corner as Davies let out an anguished half-animal  
scream as he recognised Tru's corpse.

* * *

Tru stared at Davies, trying to comprehend what he had told her. "I DIED?"

Davies nodded. "Suicide. And you asked for help. In the end you wanted to  
live, you weren't done yet"

"Who did I ask?"

Amanda stood in the corner, still utterly confused and terrified about what  
was going on. She timidly raised her hand.

"I've got your replacement" Davies announced. "I've taught you everything  
that I can about medicine and I don't think you need the money from working  
here any more?"

Tru shook her head. No, she didn't. Without having to afford the cocaine and  
with all the money she'd earned from whoring she could easily put herself  
through college AND have enough to practically buy and equip Kristine a new  
free clinic for her disaster victims.

"What about Jack?"

Davies took her to the mortuary. Jack lay there, stiff and stark, the top of  
his head blown away by the bullet he'd put through his own skull.

"He didn't ask" Davies explained simply.

She was grateful when Davies covered him up again. She wondered if Jack had  
had any more choice in this than she'd ever had?

"I can still help" she offered.

Davies shook his head. "You've done your share."

She took him in her arms and kissed him long and hard.

"I love you" she whispered softly into his ear.

"I love you" he responded in turn.

She turned to Amanda and kissed her too, feeling this shy, timid girl go  
rigid in her arms as she did so.

"If it ever gets too much, if you ever need anyone to talk to, just call me"  
she told her. Amanda nodded.

Tru walked out of the morgue, never to return.

* * *

Harrison and Meredith waited outside, giving her the few minutes she  
requested before coming to visit their father. He looked so much smaller and  
less impressive in his prison clothes.

"Hello daddy."

"Hello kitten."

"What made you turn yourself in?"

"It's a long story. Call Harrison and Meredith in and I'll tell you all  
together."

In the few seconds of privacy they had left he put the flat of his hand  
against the bulletproof glass of the visitors cubicle that separated him from  
his daughter.

Tru stretched hers out and put her palm on the glass opposite his.

The End


End file.
